strengthen your organization’s exposure to your key target markets.

Research Enterprise Office (REO) had organized and conducted a one-day workshop on 25th November 2009 for staff and students on the opportunity to secure funding and grants from Cradle Fund Sdn Bhd, a company wholly funded by Ministry of Finance. One of the grants introduced by Cradle Fund is the University Cradle Investment Programme Catalyst (U-CIP Catalyst). This grant is specifically targeted to researchers and/ or inventors and students of research institutes, private and public universities, colleges and institutes of higher education in Malaysia. The objective of U-CIP Catalyst is to assist researchers/or inventors to commercialize their invention into marketable products, technologies or services by providing pre-seed funding of between RM50,000 to RM150,000 over a period of 4-12 months. The fund covers the development of prototypes, proof of concepts, business plans, IP search and registration, surveys and other expenses related to the product development.

Speakers from Cradle Fund Sdn Bhd, Mr Kenny Mah and Ms Syazwani Ismail urged the staff and students to apply for this grants online via www.cradle.com.my as the grant will assist them into transforming their invention into commercially viable products. They added that the grants focus on both ICT and non-ICT ideas and other interesting ideas with strong innovative technology-related component in any industry that has a strong commercial value and will be beneficial to Malaysians, the economy and the world, will also be considered. Besides offering grants, the company also provides advisory support to inventors, industry mentoring programme, and other services related to personal development and competencies.

Tn Hj Azminuddin, Senior Manager REO in his opening remarks reiterated the importance of U-CIP Catalyst to assist the university in achieving its targets of becoming a Research University by 2013 by producing more inventions and products into the market. .The U-CIP Catalyst grant can be an alternative to other funds as it is easily available and the fund itself covers product which is close to being market-ready. He also encouraged graduating students to apply for the grant and develop their invention into marketable product which can also leading them to become an entrepreneur by establishing their own company. This aspiration suits well with the university’s mission of producing a well-rounded graduate, and the future leaders of the industry.

KUANTAN: UMP Holdings Sdn Bhd, the business arm of Universiti Malaysia Pahang (UMP), signed a memorandum of understanding with six companies to pave the way for collaboration to develop an information technology-based product.

It was UMP Holdings’ first commercial collaboration with the private sector.

Its chairman Datuk Seri Abdul Aziz Abdul Rahman said the product, an integrated management system called E-Management Enterprise Solution, was commercialised after it was developed by a UMP lecturers.

“It was developed by a team from the Computer Science and Software Engineering Faculty led by project manager Prof Madya Wan Maseri Wan Mohd,” he told reporters after the signing ceremony at the UMP campus in Gambang here on Thursday.

Also present was UMP vice-chancellor Datuk Dr Daing Nasir Ibrahim.

Abdul Aziz said that more business ventures were expected this year and the university had the right workforce and resources to develop marketable products.

He said that a good response had been received from publicity campaigns at state departments and agencies.

On other business plans, Abdul Aziz said that UMP Holdings would meet Mentri Besar Datuk Seri Adnan Yaakob to explore the possibility of working on matters pertaining to information technology.

In his speech, Abdul Aziz said the product was a management and administration solutions provider to minimise time and labour costs.

Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) and Universiti Malaya (UM) have joined YTL Communications Sdn BhdÂ´s Education Partner Program (EPP), which will see 4G Mobile Internet being deployed campus-wide for their students.

Under the EPP partnership, each student will also receive free converged data and voice services of 300 megabytes per user, on a monthly basis over a period of 3 years at anytime and from anywhere throughout the campus grounds. On top of that, the students will be able to top up their accounts at special student rates. UM sees 4G Mobile Internet as a perfect tool to enhance studentsÂ´ lives on campus."The combination of 4G Broadband & Voice service under one account is a great value proposition to our students. When every ringgit needs to be stretched, it helps that our students can use their 300 megabytes of free broadband to make free phone calls, too," said Dr. David Asirvatham, Director, Center for Information Technology, UM.On the other hand, the 4G Mobile Internet can help UPM with its model of Ubiquitous Learning, which relies on the Malaysian Research and Education Network (MYREN), a high-capacity broadband network that connects universities, colleges, research organisations and scientific laboratories, explained Associate Professor Dr. Suhaimi Napis, CTO and Director, InfoComm Development Centre (iDEC), UPM. The university also has a number of cloud services that can support blended learning Ã¢â‚¬â€œ a mixture of remote and on-premise education. For example, the video collaboration services, 1VideoBridge, make live virtual classes possible, while uCast, modelled after a popular video-sharing portal, facilitates video-on-demand"All this innovation that supports the ubiquitous learning model canÂ´t be fully harnessed by the students without high speed Internet access that is available everywhere and from any device," said Suhaimi. UPM and UM are the third and fourth local university respectively to join the EPP program in the last two months after UTM and UTAR. All twenty of MalaysiaÂ´s public universities and selected private universities are expected to join the programme by the end of year.

KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 3 (Bernama) -- Universiti Pertahanan Nasional Malaysia (UPNM) chalked a new milestone by becoming the first local public university to offer Information Technology Security (IT Security) certification for its computer science undergraduates.

The programme is offered in collaboration with International Council of Electronic Commerce Consultants (EC-Council), a leading IT Security certification provider.

UPNM Vice-Chancellor Datuk Zulkifli Zainal Abidin said the programme was in line with the government's call to produce local professionals able to handle crimes in information technology (IT).

"Security experts in IT are very important to the nation now, mainly to stop cyber crimes through computer chains that can be a threat to the security of the nation," he told reporters after signing a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with EC-Council at the university here, on Thursday.

Multimedia University

THE UNIVERSITY

Multimedia University (MMU), a tertiary education institution set up through Universiti Telekom Sdn Bhd (UTSB), a wholly owned subsidiary of TM, fulfils the noblest of corporate social responsibilities -

taking up the challenge of educating the next generation the nation's leaders and knowledge workers.As the first private university in Malaysia, MMU developed the pioneer model for the successful establishment

of private universities in the nation, paving the way for the growth of the private tertiary education sector.

As the university at the heart of the MSC, MMU also serves as a catalyst for the development of the high tech

ICT industry of the nation, parallel to the Silicon Valley-Stanford model in the United States.Growing to over 20,000 students in 12 short years, MMU has achieved much in a relatively short period of time.

The university runs in two campuses, its original campus in the historical city of Melaka, and the campus in Cyberjaya that was opened by the former Prime Minister, Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamed.It has produced 22,820 graduates in its time, and a recent survey demonstrates that 93% of these secure employment within 6 months of the completion of studies. It has also grown an outstanding pool of international students numbering at 4,200 from 75 countries. Establishing itself as a major player in research and development, and maintaining excellent ties with the industry through collaborations and research partnerships, MMU now hosts 13 Research Centres to date, focusing in the niche areas of nanotechnology,microsystems, biometrics, virtual reality, microwave and telecommunications, engineering, photonics, advanced robotics and business.

Through an organisation-wide policy of prudent spending and careful budgeting, the university successfully achieved financial independence within the first 3 years of its founding, and continue to be sustainable andfinancially healthy to this day.This is in spite of a recent infrastructural expansion in both its campuses during the period of 2006 till present, with the completion of the Phase 3 of development in theMelaka Campus and Phase 2 of development in the Cyberjaya Campus.

As part of TM's initiative to further develop the ICT industry in the nation as a whole, MMU serves to fulfil the nation's human resource needs as it grows into a knowledge economy.The establishment of MMU as a research university also serves to benefit the nation's ICT industry to be a creator and not just a consumer of technology.Through the establishment of a local private university, the nation can train its required human resources within its borders, a sound strategy from the economic management perspective.MMU's continued growth and sustainability is a clear indication of TM's strong commitment towards the development of the field of educationand research in the nation.Currently, MMU has a total of seven faculties with two supporting academic divisions.